1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an antenna, and especially relates to a method and system for automatically inspecting electrical characteristics of a patch antenna and trimming the patch antenna.
2. Description of Related Art
A ceramic patch antenna includes a substrate. The substrate includes a radiation metal surface which is at the front side of the substrate, a grounded metal surface which is at the back side of the substrate, and a signal feed-in terminal which is through the substrate and is electrically connected to the radiation metal surface. The first job after a ceramic patch antenna has been manufactured is to inspect whether the electrical characteristics of the ceramic patch antenna are in the standard parameters or not. The inspection mentioned above is essential because different printing sizes of the radiation metal surfaces of the ceramic patch antennas will result in different electrical characteristics.
When the ceramic patch antenna is inspected, the ceramic patch antenna is electrically connected to a connector of a radio frequency component testing coaxial cable, so that the electrical characteristics of the ceramic patch antenna are inspected by a testing instrument. Then, a Smith chart of the electrical characteristics will be displayed on the testing instrument. After that, the inspector will check with eyes whether the Smith chart displayed on the testing instrument is the same as the standard parameters or not. If it is not the same, the radiation metal surface of the ceramic patch antenna will be trimmed by the inspector personally with a trimming machine. Once the Smith chart displayed on the testing instrument is the same as the standard parameters, the inspector will stop trimming the radiation metal surface of the panel ceramic antenna.
The inspector who trims the radiation metal surface needs a lot of experiences. Moreover, the manufacturing cost is high and the production capacity is low because inspecting and trimming ceramic patch antennas are relied on manpower.